Imagined Causes: Hume's Conception of Objects [Hardcover]

This book provides the first comprehensive account of Humes conception of objects in Book I of A Treatise of Human Nature. What, according to Hume, are objects? Ideas? Impressions? Mind-independent objects? All three? None of the above? Through a close textual analysis, Rocknak shows that Hume thought that objects are imagined ideas. But, she argues, he struggled with two accounts of how and when we imagine such ideas. On the one hand, Hume believed that we always and universally imagine that objects are the causes of our perceptions. On the other hand, he thought that we only imagine such causes when we reach a philosophical level of thought. This tension manifests itself in Humes account of personal identity; a tension that, Rocknak argues, Hume acknowledges in the Appendix to the Treatise. As a result of Rocknaks detailed account of Humes conception of objects, we are forced to accommodate new interpretations of, at least, Humes notions of belief, personal identity, justification and causality.

This book provides the first comprehensive account of Humes conception of objects in Book I of the Treatise. It discusses hotly debated claims in recent literature, such as why some causal relations are justified, and why Hume is not a skeptical realist.

General Introduction.-?PART I: LAYING THE GROUNDWORK.-?1. Four Distinctions.-?2. Elementary Belief, Causally-Produced Belief and the Natural Relation of Causality.- 3. The Two Systems of Reality.- PART II: PERFECT IDENTITY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL IMAGINATION.- 4. Proto-Objects.- 5. The First Account of Transcendental Perfect Identity: The Foundation of Secret Causes.- 6. A Mysterious Kind of Causation: The Second Account of Transcendental Perfect Identity.- 7. Unity, Number and Time: The Third Account of Transcendental Perfect Identity.-?PART III: IMAGINING CAUSES IN REACTION TO THE VULGAR: A PURELY PHILOSOPHICAL ENDEAVOR.lC$